Adelaide Winter Holiday 2014 (Day 3): BBQ City Restaurant (Chinatown) ~ Review

For late lunch, we headed off to BBQ City Restaurant. We've been eyeing this place for a while after seeing the place being so crowded every evening.

As we enter, we were directly greeted and directed to our table. The staff attending to our order was very patient with us changing our minds here and there. Kudos for that. 

The food arrived shortly I found myself eating watching some game show and news from a few TVs pasted on the ceiling of the restaurant.

We decided on 4 dishes that day (with 1 I totally forgot to take picture of).

Braised Chicken Fillet with Seasonal Vegetables

The chicken was very tender and sweet while the vegetables are cooked just nice - still crispy and green. The sauce has some white wine infused inside it which makes the dish taste sweet and savoury. Eat this with rice to balance out the flavour.

Shredded Beef in Peking Style 

Of course I had to order this for comparison. The BBQ city version really good. The meat is tender and crispy. The sauce covered every inch of the beef and shredded carrot. The carrot was crunchy enough. It was as comparable or even better than those I had in Kam Fook.

Ma Bo Tofu

Another really great dish. The dish was very flavourful thanks to the spicy savoury sauce that covers the vegetables and minced meat. The tofu was smooth and tasty, the mushroom was soft and chewy while the carrot and baby corn adds crunch and sweetness into the dish. Will recommend this dish if you're looking for a nice hearty vegetable dish.

One dish that's missing a picture is their Yang Zhou Fried Rice which can actually be found on the right corner of the Ma Bo Tofu picture. I haven't had a very savoury, rich and flavourful fried rice like this in a while. The BBQ pork bits in the rice add some sweetness into the dish while contrasting the saltiness from the egg and the crunch from the shallots.

I can totally understand why BBQ City is a favourite among the locals. They offered really tasty, nice Chinese food. The taste is really close to the food I have here in Singapore's Chinese restaurants.The location is very strategic and there are ample seating spot as well. The price was quite affordable too. A good place for dining-in or even takeaway.

Adelaide Winter Holiday 2014 (Day 1): Hong Fat BBQ Restaurant ~ Review

After a long journey from Sydney, we arrived around late afternoon starving in Adelaide. While exploring the Chinatown area, we came across this place for little Chinese food fix.

Upon entering the place, I must say I have my own reservation. The place looks rather..... not clean. Oh and we were greeted by a lady shouting at the chef (I think it has something to do with letting the chef know that we arrived or something). Anyway, awkward entrance aside, here's what we got.

Fried Combination with Fried Rice

So what you have is here chopped vegetables (probably Chinese Kale), bits of crab stick, fish, prawn, pork, chicken, and beef all stir fried in with some kind of an oyster sauce (salty-savoury kind of taste). This concoction is then dumped on top of fried rice (egg+rice). The combination of all the meats and vegetable are flavourful and very savoury. However, I can't help but think that this dish is made out of the many excess bits of food they have. Is that a bad thing to say? Anyway topping aside, the fried rice taste really bland eaten alone.

I must say that their portion is really really generous. The rice practically fills up the whole bowl and that fried combination practically covers the whole top of the bowl with the sauce sipping down to 1/4 length of the bowl.

Roast Duck with Rice

Let me just say first that I am not that much of a duck fan. This dish is rather fragrant and the duck is quite tender. The sweet savoury sauce is pretty nice though it's too little for us; we had to ask for extra serving of the sauce on the side. The sauce balance well with the hint of saltiness of the roast duck.

Singapore Fried Noodle

I don't understand why this is called Singapore Fried Noodle.It does not remind me of Singapore at all. Anyway that matter aside, the noodle serving is very generous. The noodle comes with bean sprouts, prawns and bits of meat. Taste wise is kinda bland; they could've up the sauce on this and make it more savoury. I would say skip this.

Though there's quite ample seating area, I would not recommend this place for long chill-out session because it does not cut it for me. It's not comfortable enough and, again, I just don't find it that clean. I'd say go here for takeaways or if you're on a tight budget. The plus points of this place comes from its very reasonable price, giant portion and pretty decent food.

If you're going to Adelaide for a holiday, I suggest you go for BBQ City instead for a good fix of Chinese food.

Sydney Winter Holiday 2014 (Day 2): Emperor's Cream Puff and Superbowl Chinese Restaurant ~ Review

After a fine morning in Newtown, we headed to Chinatown.

Chinatown Gate Entrance

We were there to get some glutinous rice dumplings as it was the start of the festival (my family follows this kind of tradition). We got ours at the Emperor's Garden Cake & Bakery and while I don't have a picture with me (sadly), what I can tell you is I've had way better tasting glutinous rice dumpling (aka bak chang). This bak chang is so bland and the rice is not soft and sticky enough -.-

While we were there, we also decided to check out the Emperor's Puff.

Emperor's Cream Puff on the middle with the Restaurant on the left and the bakery on the right

I've seen long queues for the Emperor's Puff many times during my previous visits and I promised myself that I would get one of those when the queue is not crazy. Lucky for me, there were no queue that Monday afternoon. One pull factor I notice is this thing is quite cheap.

The Review
This puff is definitely not the crispy-kind. It has a very soft dough with vanilla custard filling in the middle. This is served warm at best. To be honest, I am a person that prefers the crispy puff so this thing unfortunately did not make me jump off my seat in excitement. The custard filling here is also not that sensational in my opinion, it's okay (I think if it were sweeter and thicker, it would've taste better). In summary, I don't think it's worth the queue.

Our next stop is Superbowl Chinese Restaurant. A bit of a fun fact: I don't think there was a time when my family and I visited Sydney and we skipped this restaurant. We just love their food, especially...

The Review

This plain congee is not straight plain with no taste - it has a hint of savoury salty-sweet taste (upon further research, I realised it's pork broth). We just always find it perfectly seasoned and pairs well with just about any dish. We like it so much that we usually ordered 2 large bowls for 3-5 people, like this time around.

Their deep fried fritter is also really nice. It's really crispy and warm :) It's a tad too oily so be prepared to blot it with some tissue.

This time around we also got their Fried Pippis with XO Chilli Sauce and this thing taste soo good - the saltiness, sweetness and hint of spiciness. The fresh pippis was also another plus. Do get one when you're in a large group. It's not too spicy so even my sister who's not a fan of chilli can eat this.

Their homemade mapo tofu is also really nice - one of my favourite dish. I usually have problem with mapo tofu dish as it can be too bland but this definitely wasn't one of those. The combination of the tofu, the sauce and the minced meat is just right. I can eat this just about any day :p




Now for the so-so dish..

The Ginger Shallot Steamed Fish is pretty so-so for me. I mean it's nice and the fish is quite fresh but it does not taste any different from any other restaurant's take on such dish. I'd save my tummy next time for more mapo tofu or pippis.

I gotta be honest and say I am in general not a fan of lemon chicken because I find it most of the time has too much sauce and too sweet to mask the sourness of the lemon. This dish didn't escape those violation too in my opinion. Another thing is I find the chicken too oily (I think Superbowl in general need to watch the amount of oil they use for deep fried stuff). The only 1 perk - I find the chicken portion pretty generous and the meat is cooked nicely (not raw and easy to chew).

The salted egg prawn is also a bit of a letdown mainly because I tasted better. The taste of the dish was border-lining bland in my opinion, they should have used more salted egg. Also, I think the prawn is slightly overcooked as it not crunchy enough in my opinion.




In summary, I would recommend this place if you're in a Chinatown area, especially if you're looking for a quick fix of congee and deep fried fritters :)

Superbowl Restaurant: 41 Dixon Street Chinatown, NSW 2000.

Sydney Winter Holiday 2014 (Day 2): Blackflower Patisserie ~ Review

Cheeseburger Macarons?? Whattt????

I didn't know such thing exist as well but it does...

Long story short - my brother's friend was talking about this place prior to our trip and while we were heading to Chinatown for lunch at our regular Superbowl, we came across this place and we knew that we had to go back.

I didn't get the chance to spend a lot of time here but I must say I like the sleek and clean design of the space. I like how even though they use black paint, the space was well lit.

Compare to the other pastry place and cafe I went to so far, this is by far the most spacious - lots of indoor seating.

Look at those macarons. Yum. According to the staff, their most popular macarons are the cheeseburger macaron (most right side), the kungfu panda (second to right), lychee and rose, and patron XO & chocolate macaron. We decided to get those and the chocolate one as well.

The Review 

The macaron texture for me across all flavours are nice - airy, crumbles in you mouth. Though these have yet to beat Zumbarons, they were great.

Behold the cheeseburger macaron, the star of the show :) This thing taste just like a burger with the meat, cheese, tomato sauce and all..... NAH KIDDING! This mini 'burger' actually taste sweet, like chocolate.. Sweet but not too sweet which I like. And look at that intricate design, don't they look like very pretty cheeseburgers? I was having a hard time biting to it just because it looks so cute. A star buy I must say, really like this :)

Another star of the buy is the Kungfu Panda. It is the white macaron with 2 strips and a dot at the surface. The 2 strips are suppose to be the panda's eyes and the dot is either its mouth or nose. This macaron taste like salted caramel and I really like how the sweetness of the caramel was not masked by the salt. It's not over-the-top sweet, it's goooodddd ;p

The pink one is the lychee and rose macaroon. This one for me was just a so-so. I couldn't really taste the lychee but the rose was definitely there. Probably if you're someone that likes rose or flower-y taste in your pastry, you'll love this one. Not me unfortunately.

The last one is the XO Patron & Chocolate macaron. This is my least favourite from the bunch mostly because I found the chocolate too rich for my taste. 

All in all, this place is a must visit for me. I love the creativity they put in their macarons and as I've read more reviews about them, I am really keen to come back and try their other foods. I also like how strategically located they are (at Haymarket). See you again soon Blackflower Patisserie!